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Thursday, January 15, 2015

#ThursdayThoughts: Guest Post by Leslie Gould

Hello Again!

If you are a regular follower, I Thank You and Welcome You Back! If you are a new visitor, I pray you are blessed by being here.

Today I am pleased to have Leslie Gould drop by and share some thoughts on love and how her new novel came about....


Becoming Bea, my latest release, is a retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare. Beatrice and Benedick, one of the couples in the play, are two of my all-time favorite characters in all of literature. Their witty banter is hilarious, and I hold three lines spoken by Benedick, after his relationship with Beatrice has been resolved, very dear.

The first one is, “Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.” I’ve been married for thirty-one years to my soul mate and best friend so you’d think we’d be way beyond the wooing stage—but that’s not true. We’re also not beyond the arguing and bantering stage. We value truth and sometimes it takes some back and forth to get to what’s bothering us or the truth about a problem we’re working through. Often times a false peace comes from pretending, and that’s not peace at all. I’d much rather be wise and get to the heart of a matter than pretend.

The second quote I really like is “For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?” After three decades of being together, my husband and I certainly know each other’s bad parts. And yet, after three decades, those bad parts make us who we are, along with the good. I’m so thankful my husband loves my bad parts too!

This last quote by Benedick makes my heart do a little back flip: “I do love nothing in the world so well as you- is not that strange?” Aside from my Creator, there isn’t anything I love as much as my husband (and I love my children beyond reason!). My husband is my partner in this world, and he’s made sacrifice after sacrifice for me; our children; and our country, as a member of the Army reserve. He’s the one I love to travel with, love to explore with, and love to spend time with. There’s no else I love as well as him.


My characters, Bea and Ben, in Becoming Bea go through heart-stopping moments to get to a place of—oops, I don’t want to give anything away! But I can say, it was so fun for me to pour all of my years of admiration of Shakespeare’s characters into my own, along with what I’ve learned through all these years of being married to my husband. 

Leslie Gould is the bestselling author of nineteen novels, including the #1 bestseller and 2012 Christy Award winner The Amish Midwife, co-written with Mindy Starns Clark. Leslie’s novel Beyond the Blue was the winner of the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Inspirational Novel in 2006, and Courting Cate (inspired by The Taming of the Shrew) was a best-seller and a finalist in the FHL Inspirational Reader’s Choice Awards for 2013.

Leslie received her master of fine arts in creative writing from Portland State University and has taught fiction as an adjunct professor at Multnomah University. She was the first-ever recipient of the Oregon Christian Writers’ Trailblazer Award (2013) for her writing achievements and for her encouragement and support of other writers. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, Peter, and four children. Visit her at www.lesliegould.com.


 








Becoming Bea can be purchased at Amazon in Paperback, Large Print, and for Kindle and in Audio!

Isn't it wonderful how Leslie found inspiration for this story in Shakespeare and in her own life!

Well Friends, hope you enjoyed this guest post. Check back weekly for more Thursday Thoughts, Saturday Spotlight and Tuesday Treasures!

PamT 

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